Veteran Family Camp Fall 2022

The last weekend in October, single-parent and blended-family Veterans and their extended families attended our Fall 2022 Veterans Family Camp. Friday night, the families gathered around the campfire for skits, s’mores, and lots of dancing. Saturday morning, each family had a clinical therapy family session that focused on the question, “What do you want to get out of camp?” Then Saturday and throughout the weekend, the Veterans and their families participated in photography, cast fishing, archery, and horses, and cheered each other on at the Tower and Big Swing. Saturday afternoon, there were clinical groups based on age, and the Veteran parents had a chance to talk with other Veterans parents, as did the Veterans’ teen, pre-teen, and young children.

There were lots of wonderful outcomes from the clinical therapy group sessions. The Veteran parents said they liked best: hearing everyone else talk, and realizing they’re not the only one; partnering up and sharing contact info; encouraging each other, and engaging in helping each other; and “having the fire lit” in regards to how they could do things differently after camp. The Veterans’ teen children said they liked best: learning new things about each other, which happened both among siblings and new friends. The Veterans’ pre-teen children were the clinicians’ (understandably!) fidgety group. The clinicians found fun ways to bring discussion out of the paper airplane-making and impromptu paper ball basketball competitions. The clinicians and pre-teens talked about negative thoughts and feelings, and how they could work to make them “fly away” or to “throw them away.” The Veterans’ young children drew family portraits, and from those had insightful conversations with the clinicians on how they saw their families and their roles within their families.